Arare thing happened in an industrial park near Washington, dc,last November. Construction began on a $3bn extension to a semiconductor foundry owned by Micron Technologies, a maker of advanced memory chips, based in Idaho. “A few years ago, opening that sort of extension would have people saying, well, that is going to be moving to China soon, isn’t it?”, observes James Mulvenon, an expert on Chinese cyber-policy and espionage.
Not now. Instead, that Micron foundry is a glimpse of the future. Trust in China has collapsed among American government and business bosses, and a consensus has grown that Chinese firms have closed the technological gap with Western rivals with indecent speed and by illicit means.
[“source=economist”]